By Elli Papakonstantinou, Ariah Lester, and ODC Ensemble.
Holland Festival 2023 | Photo: Alex Kat
This virtuoso multilingual play is one of the many productions for which I crafted the surtitles.
I am a translator in the cultural sector. I love my work, I love the crisp newness of a text awaiting translation, the urge to dive in and turn it into an outstanding Dutch version. That commitment is reflected in my work, and I hope you read something here that makes you want to work with me.
Arts & culture?
My work is grounded in a broad academic and artistic background, including classical music (conservatory-trained), Italian language and Western literature (Utrecht University, cum laude), philosophy, and history and heritage.
This allows me not only to produce accurate and fluent translations, but also to identify ambiguities, minor errors and intertextual references in the source text - so the final Dutch version is clear, precise and faithful to its context.
Heritage
Museum Sloten, highlighting the significance of its location on a major waterway in contributing to the city’s prosperity. In addition to conducting research and securing funding, I was responsible for providing and implementing subtitles for the multimedia displays.
Photo: Margriet Agricola
Why a specialist matters
Specialist expertise matters when translation involves more than language alone. My work regularly includes challenges such as:
- Subject-specific terminology, for example knowing that a viola profonda is not a 'deep viola' but a distinct historical instrument with no direct Dutch or English equivalent.
- Textually complex source material, such as scripts without punctuation or adapting heavily edited playtexts into surtitles.
- Intertextual and historical references, which require contextual knowledge rather than literal translation.
- Culturally specific contexts, such as the Austrian socio-political background in the works of Elfriede Jelinek.
- Source selection, for instance choosing the appropriate Bible translation as a basis for translating biblical texts (see the Statenbijbel example).
Statenbijbel
The Statenbijbel (1637) is an important reference for seventeenth-century Dutch sacred texts — but only when the context is appropriate. A text rooted in the Catholic tradition, for instance, requires a different source. Even within Protestant contexts, careful edition selection is essential.
Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons
Clients
Selected clients include concert halls, festivals, publishers and cultural institutions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
